Words of Welcome to the “Palais des Nations”, by the Representative of the Secretary General, Ms. Kate Gilmore, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Video-Message of Mr. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Rotary: making a difference – Address by Mr. Ian Riseley, President of Rotary International 2017/2018.

VIP-Speaker: Dr. Mohanned Al-Arabiat, Board Member and President of Generations For Peace, a leading global non-profit peace-building organization founded by HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan in 2007. Dedicated to sustainable conflict transformation at the grassroots, Generations For Peace empowers volunteer leaders of youth to promote active tolerance and responsible citizenship in communities experiencing different forms of conflict and violence.

Special Guests: Ms. Lara Eckes-Chantre from Switzerland, President of Interact Genève International, and Mr. Alex Govender from South Africa, Vice-President Interact Genève International. These two young students from the International School of Geneva will share their thoughts about Peace – Making a Difference.

Presentation of Rotary’s People of Action: Champions of Peace by Mr. John Hewko, Secretary General of Rotary International and Rotary Foundation:
· Ms. Jean Best, a member of the Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright, Scotland, UK, founded The Peace Project, a skills-based training that teaches teens in 10 countries to resolve conflict within themselves and to promote peace in their schools and communities.
· Ms. Ann Frisch, a member of the Rotary Club of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, USA, introduced the Civilian-Based Peace Process to train civilians in Southern Thailand to build safe zones where families, teachers and local officials do not have to confront military forces every day.
· Ms. Safina Rahman, a member of the Rotary Club of Dhaka Mahanagar, Bangladesh, established Emancipation & Empowerment of Girls– a program that provides basic education, vocational training, disease prevention, conflict prevention, healthcare, safe drinking water and personal hygiene to 2,600 students in Bangladesh, emphasizing vocational opportunities for girls.
· Mr. Alejandro Reyes Lozano, a member of the Rotary Club of Bogotá Capital, Colombia, served on the negotiation team that helped end hostilities with The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, after the initials in Spanish), which led to a peace agreement in 2017 that brought 50 years of armed conflict to an end. Together with his Rotary club members, he helped develop the Women Building for Peace project, through which women from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela develop peace-building, conflict resolution and mediation alternatives in their communities.
· Mr. Kiran Singh Sirah, a graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, uses storytelling as a path to build peace through his Telling Stories That Matter project to address issues related to gang violence, sectarian and ethnic conflict, poverty and human rights violations. He has led programs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Scotland and Ireland.
· Ms. Taylor (Stevenson) Cass Talbott, a graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at the International Christian University in Japan, helped give voice to the marginalized by Pushing for Peace, Sanitation & Dignity for Pune’s Waste Pickers. Her project helped boost the social perception of waste pickers in Pune, India by training them in communication and self-advocacy skills.